These four walls

There isn't any alchemy in this post.  It's a moan.  A sustained grumble, if you will...

As you may have read in the previous blog, James has the chicken pox.  In short, that means quarantine for the next 4-6 days.

Today I went out to get the last few supplies to ensure we had enough to get us through the next 6 days.  Dirk leaves home at 6am, he's home somewhere between 8pm and 9pm.  This Friday, he's not home at all.  We'll see him on Saturday evening.  So there's really just James and I.

And so this week stretches ahead of me, from 5.30am when we get up to 6pm when James goes to sleep, enclosed in the 50 sq feet of our abode.  No play groups, no nursery, no friends.  Agh!

I once read an article by a woman who's friend was destitute, so she and her tiny son were put up in a B&B by the council.  She had just a room for the two of them.  The author noted how she never once grumbled about her circumstances, exceptionally difficult though they were.  When I am tempted to grumble about our minute living space, I remember this woman I have never met and aspire to her patience and grace. 

Not today.  Today it's just ... blah blah grumble blah.  One day our luck will change.  We will find a home and move.  There will be space for James to have his own room, instead of a corner of our sitting room.  We will have a bedroom with a door.  Not a curtain. 

While in my heart I know I am lucky, in my head I am frustrated, and apprehensive about a week enclosed with a sick two year old with energy to burn.  Patience and grace. 

The alchemical approach in this moment is to live from my heart. Not sure I want to.  It's easier to moan!

This is how it is.  I can't argue with that.  There are no 'it shouldn't be like this...' because that's fighting reality and reality always, always, always wins.

It is. 

I can accept it or fight it.  The fight is doomed, so best accept it.  And if I can come from my heart, then perhaps I can find just a little patience and grace in my frustration and apprehension.